by Ann Cook
“Number 3 is Grace,” she went on. “Her motive: She expected to marry Brookfield and could’ve seen Eva as a dangerous rival. Maybe Brookfield said he was still in love with Eva. Maybe he was going to break their engagement after it had just been announced. That would be devastating to a woman everyone says is so sensitive. Her whereabouts? That’s the catch, of course. She was seen leaving before the search got well underway, so she seems to have an alibi.”
“Grace seems awfully mild to go about bashing skulls.”
Brandy nodded. “Then we have Ace Langdon as Number 4. Motive: Maybe he wasn’t so unsuccessful with Eva. We only have his word for that. Maybe he’d been fooling around with her and she came there to blackmail him. We know he’s always been an incorrigible woman chaser. Maybe he’d had an affair with her and she threatened to tell. After all, he was planning to marry into a wealthy family and have a cushy job for life. That could be a powerful motive.
“His whereabouts at the time of Eva’s disappearance? Unknown. He says he was alone in the billiard room. Earlier we know he had been with Eva.” She paused to take more notes.
“And last, we have the ever–popular Axel Blackthorne. This afternoon he was surprisingly forthcoming, considering how he hates us both. He was devoted to Sylvania, but I don’t see why that gave him a reason to do away with Eva Stone. There’s one plausible motive. A commonplace in crime forever. Maybe he was paid to do the killing.
“Blackthorne himself says he was with Brookfield that afternoon. If Brookfield wanted Eva dead, he might’ve persuaded Blackthorne to do the job.”
“And how would he be paid without anyone knowing?”
“By providing financing for Blackthorne’s new construction company. Brookfield backed the developer’s business the following year. How else would a poor boy just out of the service be able to start up a construction company?
“Blackthorne had the opportunity to find Eva in the water. Maybe he was only supposed to discourage Eva, the way Blackthorne’s man tried to discourage me. He could’ve followed her into the water, got carried away while everyone was milling around, and killed her in a panic. Physically he’s a brute of a man. Blackthorne as a hired killer makes sense.”
Brandy looked up and closed her notebook. “We have motives and opportunities here, but there’s still something that we don’t know. There’s a piece of the puzzle missing. I feel it.”
John turned partly on one side to face her. “Steve says the Sheriff’s Office has taken down the boat house plank by plank today. Tomorrow they start excavating the area, looking for——dare I say the word——clues. You don’t have to do their job.”
Brandy tried to reassure him by patting his arm and smiling. Mentally she tallied up her activities for the next day: a call to Weston Stone to set up an appointment with Eva’s mother, a visit to the boat house site, the two o’clock session with Mrs. Hall.
He looked down at his swollen hand. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any time to check up on my interests. Have you talked to Curt Greene?”
She nodded. “Still hasn’t found a buyer. Tomorrow’s contract signing was postponed, but Sylvania says she’s going ahead with it as soon as the Sheriff’s Office is through digging on her property.”
She closed her bag. John looked tired, his coloring grayer, his body under the cover thinner than two days ago. Maybe she had worried him further. “I was hoping to cheer you up.”
“By telling me half my family may be killers?” But he gave her his rare smile.
She grinned back and started for the door.
“Brandy.” John’s voice startled her. When she turned she noticed the name tag on the large arrangement of flowers on the dresser. She recognized the tidy, precise handwriting and the two word message, “Love, Sharon.” In a way John’s girlfriend had been with them after all.
He raised his head while she paused before the flowers. “There’s something I need to explain…“
Brandy interrupted quickly. “No need. I understand about your girl friend. Don’t worry. There’s Mack, you know.” Of course she understood. What happened between them was a thing of the moment, a release of nervous tension after a crisis. No need for him to feel guilty. No need for her plans with Mack to change. But again she felt the lump of lead in her chest.
As she pulled the door partially closed behind her, she could see him lie back, a troubled look in his dark eyes.
Outside the wind had died down and the sky grown overcast. A fine mist hung in the low spots of the parking lot. The Florida dusk would be short and night fall like a trap. As Brandy drove down the darkening streets, she tried to push from her mind all thoughts of Sharon and Mack, and even of John. She could do nothing about Sharon, and she still had a few days to decide about Mack.
If she ever had a chance with John, she had certainly ruined it. She had gotten him dunked into the lake at night, bitten by a poisonous snake, and in trouble with all his relatives, especially the great–aunt whose support and trust he most wanted. Brandy clinched her fingers around the steering wheel. Suddenly she needed very much to be home, to be alone with her loose leaf notebook on the case, thinking only about the mystery of Eva Stone.
Fog had settled over the tall pines in the vacant lot next to the driveway, around her mother’s Ford, and along the chain link fence in the back yard. When she heard Meg’s happy, welcome–home bark, she knelt for a moment and stroked the coppery head before letting herself into the kitchen. Her mother sat at her usual place at the dining room table, wielding a red pen over a stack of papers. She looked up, lips pressed together.
“Well, have you beaten the detectives at their own game and solved the murder? I read the evening paper.” She stood and crossed to the telephone stand. “A weekly paper doesn’t pay much. It shouldn’t require you to put your life on the line.”
Brandy mumbled something about still working on the same story, and stayed in the kitchen to set a cup of instant coffee into the microwave.
“You had two messages,” Mrs. O’Bannon said. She tore a note from the memo pad on the dining room table and handed it to Brandy. “A man called about five.”
“Mr. Hyer from Hyer’s Retirement Home,” Brandy read. “Mrs. Stone wants to talk to the reporter from the Tavares Beacon. She won’t talk to any others. Call at the home tomorrow at four.” Her mother had scribbled down a Tavares address.
The older woman crossed into the kitchen. “He said Mrs. Stone had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and then had her lunch and took a long nap. Said she’ll see you after that. I guess it’s good news for you.” She pulled an iron kettle out of a cupboard. “Mr. Hyer said Mrs. Stone wants to thank you for finding her daughter’s remains.” She lifted her chin and cut her eyes sideways at her daughter. “A doubtful pleasure, I’m sure. After all these years, it must have reminded her of her painful loss. Why not let sleeping dogs lie?”
Brandy couldn’t resist a pun. “Because someone’s been lying about Eva Stone for years.” She took a sip of the hot coffee. The times would work out tomorrow if she hurried, Mrs. Hall at two, Mrs. Stone at four. “And the other message?”
Her mother handed her an envelope with no stamp and no return address. “This was in the mailbox when I got home.” Brandy slit the envelope with a paring knife and unfolded a single sheet of cheap bond paper with a few lines of type and no signature. “I have important information for your investigation,” she read silently, “but I can’t reveal my identity. I’ll leave a package of documents in your garage tonight by midnight. If I see anyone watching, I won’t stop and I’ll destroy the evidence.”
Hello, Brandy thought. Things are looking up. What kind of documents might relate to Eva Stone? Surely something that tied her to her killer——letters, legal papers? The note came in a plain white envelope, the kind carried in every drug and grocery store. Its style sounded formal, but Brandy had met no illiterates in her investigation. She tucked the note into her canvas bag and decided not to discuss it with her m
other. She could imagine her reaction, surely something sarcastic about Sherlock Holmes.
Brandy glanced out the window. The fog had not lifted. The garage was a blurry, peaked shape at the rear of the lot. After a supper of Mrs. O’Bannon’s homemade vegetable–beef soup and muffins, Brandy nipped outside, through the gate, and past their cars in the driveway. When she switched on a small bulb above the open garage doors, a faint glow spread over the counters of potted plants and bags of potting soil——a clever, out of the way place for her correspondent to stash the treasure. Brandy had been pleased with Steve Able as a source, but the note had brought her another, even more valuable.
She considered leaving Meg outside, where her barking would signal the visitor’s arrival, but she decided to let the grateful dog slink through the kitchen and into her bedroom. Meg might frighten Brandy’s benefactor away.
In her room Brandy changed into a shirt and jeans, ready to dart back out to the garage around midnight. By nine– thirty she was at her desk, transcribing notes into a loose leaf binder while the interviews with Ace, Blackthorne, and Grace were still sharp in her mind. Meg scrambled under the bed, her chew rag in her jaws, her feathery tail thumping, and they settled down to wait. About ten Brandy heard her mother’s door close. Summer school started early.
By eleven Brandy began straining to hear a car. Almost none ever turned down their street. But the only sound was the monotonous hum of the room air conditioner. Her eyes grew heavy. She laid down her pen and nodded at her desk. About eleven–fifteen Meg growled deep in her throat and poked her creamy muzzle out below the bedspread fringe. Brandy turned off the desk lamp and peered through the venetian blinds.
She could see no headlights, no figure, only the bulk of their own cars, blocking her view of the garage. Beyond the driveway nothing moved except the fog around the pines and wax myrtle in the vacant lot. Meg squirmed out from under the bed, paced back and forth, whining, and laid her chin in Brandy’s lap.
“You know something’s amiss,” Brandy whispered, “but we don’t dare go outside and scare the person away.” Surely, she thought, she would be able to figure out from the documents themselves who had left them. Brandy waited until eleven–forty–five. Then she quietly peeked into the hall. From the crack under the other bedroom door, she could see her mother’s room was dark. Meg’s damp nose pushed forward, but Brandy petted her, then gently shoved her back into the bedroom. “Can’t have you barking,” she said, and closed the door.
Outside the sky was blanketed with clouds, the mist thicker than ever. She had depended on the garage door light and not thought to bring a flash. Now she hesitated, turned on the back porch light, and decided she could see well enough with the two.
She felt her way around the cars and stood for a moment under the pale bulb, peering into the dimness of the garage. One of the double doors had been shut. She didn’t remember seeing the change earlier in the evening, but she hadn’t looked. Maybe her mother wanted to protect some fragile plants from the wind.
When Brandy stepped onto the littered garage floor, she first examined the shelves and counter top near the entrance. No parcel. Her benefactor had been more secretive. She was conscious of a familiar odor——charcoal briquettes burning. Maybe her mother hadn’t completely doused the coals in the hibachi last night, then set it inside in case the rains came. Brandy would have to check before she left the garage. It was not like Mrs. O’Bannon to be careless.
After stumbling over a large bag of pine bark, Brandy felt her way along the counter past two metal cans of weed killer, almost tripped over a rake, and banged her shin on the lawn mower. At last through the shadows she saw a tall cardboard box she had never seen before, standing beside paint cans on a low rear shelf.
She had reached the box, had put her hands on the sides, then groped inside, when something creaked behind her, and she was plunged into sudden darkness. It took a minute for her to realize that the other garage door had swung shut. She hadn’t been aware of a rising wind. While she stood, startled, staring into blackness, the outside locking bar rattled into place.
She stood, shaking, in an inky pit. Wind could not shift the bar. How could the door have closed? The odor now was much stronger. She felt muddled, headachy. In the corner she had seen a clump of fiddle leaf plants and a large, potted bougainvillea, all recuperating from last winter’s freeze. The smell came from behind them. She could see no flame, but in the absolute night of the garage a ruddy glow shone through the leaves, not enough to give light——the hibachi.
She dragged herself back in the direction she thought led to the door, halted, tried to remember where the lawn mower and the bags of pine bark were. Now she had trouble getting her breath, felt nauseated. She needed to rest a minute and gather her thoughts. No one could hear her bang on the door now.
Maybe she would have to wait until morning when her mother left for work. Then she could check the box. As she lowered herself to the concrete floor, closed her eyes, and dropped her head between her knees, she heard one sound from a great distance——a faint barking.
SEVENTEEN
Brandy was first conscious of a strong light and her big red dog vibrating with excitement beside her, then of the round face of a woman in a white uniform above her. She lay in the night air on a hard, damp surface. She must be on her back in the driveway. Her head throbbed.
“A near thing,” the woman said, and placed an oxygen mask over Brandy’s nose. “Move one of those cars so we can get the van in here. We need to get out before the rain starts.”
“Will she be all right?” Her mother’s voice anxious, then a more reluctant, “If it hadn’t been for that dog… Her barking woke me up. I looked and my daughter wasn’t in her room. The dog led me to the garage.” More insistent. “Is she all right?”
The woman nodded and straightened up. “You got her into the air in time. A dog’s nose comes in handy. Ask the cops.” She motioned to someone behind her. “We’ll give your daughter a hundred per cent oxygen for a while, let the doctor check her out.” The medics lifted Brandy on a stretcher and carried her as they had carried John. Brandy dropped one hand and felt the retriever’s silky back. She was surprised when her mother knelt beside the ambulance and put her arms around Meg, fleas and all.
Before the door slammed shut Brandy saw a deputy jump out of his car at the curb and come toward them. “I need to get some facts here,” he said.
One of the medics turned. “Talk to the mother. Carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Then another loud, familiar voice. “What the hell is going on here?” Oh, lord. Rumpled and unshaven, Mack stalked out of the darkness.
Her mother close to her ear. “I called him, dear.”
She had a brief view of Mack’s tall form, his face perplexed and angry. “I want to know how this happened.”
The box of documents, Brandy thought, she had never checked the box.
The door closed. A woman sat beside her while she breathed oxygen.
***
Brandy tried to orient herself, to decide what was real. She had been asleep, had dreamed she was trapped in a box struggling to breathe. She was sure something like that had happened. Yet this was a hospital. In the dream the lid had closed on her, shutting out the air. But she knew there was something important about a box. She breathed deeply, and found she was now receiving her oxygen in a nose tube.
At the foot of her bed the plastic curtain slid aside, and a stocky, middle–aged man in street clothes came toward her. He flashed a Sheriff’s Office badge. “Detective Morris,” he said. “We need to talk. You okay?”
Brandy shook off the momentary terror and looked around. “I’m okay,” she said. “I was groggy, but my head’s clear now. Where’s my watch? I’ve got appointments this afternoon.” She noticed that someone, probably her mother, had laid fresh clothes over the foot of the bed.
The balding detective leaned so close that Brandy could see the hairs in his heavy brown mustache and eyebrows. It
was not an unpleasant face, but purposeful. “It’s only nine, Miss. You’re in the hospital emergency wing. Doc says they’re letting you go soon.” He sat on a padded stool beside the bed. “Look, I talked to your mom before she left. She told me someone put a note in your mailbox yesterday, while you were both at work. She found it in your bag.”
Brandy pulled the pillow up behind her and sat up. “The big cardboard box on the rear shelf…”
“Blank paper on top, this week’s newspapers underneath.”
Brandy slapped her hand down on the blanket. “Of course! I was so muddle–headed I didn’t know what was happening.”
“Common with carbon monoxide. That’s why it’s so dangerous.”
Her voice rose. “Any prints on the note or the box?”
He grinned. “Everyone expects fingerprints. We dusted, but I don’t think so. Whoever did this knew about fingerprints. Also your only neighbor was away last night. She did hear the dog barking yesterday afternoon, but she didn’t go outside to check. Looks like that’s when the perpetrator moved the hibachi from the picnic table to the garage. Your mom would’ve been at work then. The perp knew what he was doing. Even used WD–40 on the garage door hinges.”
Brandy remembered the sudden blackness. “I couldn’t find the door. I got so disoriented.”
“Burning briquettes can fill a small, closed space with carbon monoxide fast.”
She clinched her fingers around the covers. “Any luck tracing the note?”
“Since you saw it, I guess I can tell you it’s a computer print–out. Hard to identify.”
“Any footprints in the vacant lot next door?”
“On pine needles?”
Brandy realized the intruder probably parked down the block and came across the lot. Any tire prints would be washed away by rain early that morning.
He poised a pencil over his spiral note pad. “I want you to fill in the details.”
Brandy folded her hands before her and explained all she knew. Her poking around had clearly made enemies, maybe at least four——Axel Blackthorne, Sylvania Langdon, Ace Langdon, and Grace Able. The detective stared back at her, his eyes grave. “My recommendation, Miss, is to forget this case.”
